


Proposal of a Winter's Evening

by aerye



Category: due South
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-27
Updated: 2011-01-27
Packaged: 2017-10-15 03:44:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/156701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aerye/pseuds/aerye





	Proposal of a Winter's Evening

"Wiggle your fingers more, Ray."

"Like this?"

"More."

"Like this?"

"Ah...maybe if you just hooked the little finger on your right hand a tad bit more..."

"If I hook my finger any more it's gonna break off. Okay, how about this one." I watched Ray reposition his hands, which had almost no effect on the fuzzy shadow falling on the wall of the tent. "This is an easy one."

Now I am here to tell you that while Ray Kowalski is a very talented man, capable of excelling at any number of things he might put his mind to, his proficiency at shadow puppets leaves much to be desired. The Spider hadn't looked any more like a spider than the Elephant had resembled that majestic mammal. In fact both of them, like most of Ray's shadow puppets, bore a strong resemblance to a rabbit. And inexplicably, his rabbit had looked like a caribou.

He was waiting. "You're right, of course. And a fine..." I hesitated again. Squinted again. "A fine Atlantic Puffin it is."

Ray dropped his hands and shook his head sadly. "Woodpecker, Frase. Like Woody the Woodpecker. You know." He grinned. "Ha-ha- **HA** -ha. Ha-ha- **HA** -ha. Hehhehhehheh."

"Actually Ray, I believe the call of a woodpecker is much more melodic, with a much a higher pitch, similar to a--"

"You're a freak." Ray turned his attention back to undressing, a task he'd been engaged in when he'd been diverted by the shadows playing against the walls of our tent and decided to demonstrate some of his own.

"Understood, Ray. My mistake." I had already removed both my shirt and trousers and slid into the sleeping bag first, moving to the far side to make room for him. We'd established quite early on that we both stayed warmer, and therefore slept better, when we conserved our body heat.

Ray will still undressing, pulling his shirt over his head, and I watched as he made his way over to the entrance to the tent, peering cautiously out the window flap.

"Fraser?"

"Yes, Ray?"

"How far you think we are from Yellowknife? Two days? Three?"

"Possibly closer to three." We'd stopped early today. There was a storm coming up fast, and after some discussion Ray and I decided just to dig in and wait it out. Though we were on our way back, we were in no hurry. Ray still had two weeks of leave, and I myself had at least a month's worth of time still owed. Rather than push on through the increasingly unpleasant weather, we decided to stop for the night, and carved out a nest in the snow for the dogs and shored up a wall next to the tent, to cut the force of the wind. "Four if this doesn't blow out by tomorrow."

He nodded thoughtfully, then turned back into the tent. Moving quickly now--as I had already banked the heater for the night--he removed his boots, stripped off his trousers, and doused the light in the lamp, making a dive for the sleeping bag. The layers of down shifted as he settled in next to me, lying back, and then he sighed.

"Fraser?"

"Yes, Ray?"

"What about once we get to Yellowknife? What's going to happen then?"

I turned towards him, hitching the edge of the sleeping bag higher onto my shoulder. I was deliberately delaying my answer. Not because I didn't know what would happen when we reached Yellowknife, but because I didn't want to know. Quite frankly, I didn't want to dwell on the fast approaching end of our journey together, the eventual return to what Ray had dubbed the real world, which necessarily meant his return to Chicago, and our inevitable parting. "Well, we'll need several days to unpack, and clean and refurbish the equipment before we return it to Sergeant Frobisher. After that," I shouldered through my inclination to leave his question only partially answered, "well, there are several commercial flights out of Yellowknife. I'm sure you could get a flight out quite easily, thought with likely connections in Calgary, and then perhaps again in Edmonton, so it may take a day or two to actually get back to Chicago."

"Hmmm." The nylon hissed as Ray reached down to scratch his leg through the thick winter underwear he was still wearing. I was used to this by now, the twitching, the fidgeting, the restlessness when we first turned in. It always took him a while to settle down at night, even after a hard day.

"Fraser?"

"Yes, Ray?"

"What about you? What happens to you when we get to Yellowknife?"

 _I will begin missing you,_ I thought, and then rejected my own tendency to be maudlin. Whatever my fate, whatever our fate, Ray had given me two months of unbridled pleasure, following my lead as we'd wandered the territory I called home with only our inclination to guide us. Whatever came next, what I'd had should never be discounted. "I'll get a new assignment, Ray. Yellowknife is headquarters for the whole of the Northwest Territories, so it will quite easy to get back into a routine. I'll have to sign back in and review the vacancies, possibly spend a few weeks in Yellowknife during the transition, but won't be too long before I'm reassigned."

"Inuvik?"

"Perhaps." I hadn't really given it much thought yet, preferring uncharacteristically to, as Ray would say, live in the moment. "Perhaps Tuktoyaktuk." Norman Wells, perhaps. Though the only thing that seemed important about all these places was how far they were from Chicago. "It will depend to a certain extent on what's available, Ray."

"Yeah," and I smiled at Ray's derisive snort, "and I'm sure there's a real long waiting list for all those places, Mounties fighting tooth and nail to get assigned to the middle of nowhere."

The wind suddenly gusted and the tent rocked alarmingly, but the stakes Ray had pounded in held, and after a few seconds everything settled again. It was quiet then, for several minutes, and I thought perhaps Ray had fallen asleep.

"Fraser?"

Ah. So he was still awake.

"Yes, Ray?"

"What if..." He shifted around in the sleeping bag again, this time turning to face me. He propped his head up on his hand. "What if..." He stopped again.

"What if what, Ray?" I could barely make him out in the darkness, just the outline of his hair, which had grown both longer and darker, and his eyes, surprisingly intense even in that darkness.

"How good would you say I've gotten at this wilderness thing, Fraser?"

"Wilderness thing?" He had changed course on me, and I was confused.

"Yeah, y'know, this surviving on nothing but snow and canned stew and learning how to drive the dogs and set up the tent and generally not freeze to death thing."

"Well, Ray," I felt my thumb slide across my eyebrow and forced my hand back down again. It was too near to the end for me to be eager to accelerate the process by reminiscing. But Ray had asked a question. "Ray, you have certainly learned many of the fundamentals of survival very quickly; however, I feel I should point out that the Northwest Territories can be very challenging, even for the most seasoned--"

"Yeah, yeah, I know," he interrupted me impatiently, "but generally, you'd give me a decent grade on Tundra 101?"

"A decent grade...?"

"Okay, maybe not an A plus or anything, but definitely a B, right?"

"Ray, I--"

"I mean, I've pulled my own weight here, right? Maybe not the first few days but after that, right? I mean, I haven't been a burden--well, not too much of a burden anyway. And wherever you get stationed, I mean, it's not gonna be like being out on the snow 24/7, right? I mean, they give you Mounties a cabin to live in and everything, don't they? Even when you're out patrolling the Buttfuck Territories of No Man's Land?"

I studied him more intently. "Housing is always included in any assignment to a wilderness detachment but--"

"So we'd have a cabin?"

 _We?_ Traitorous heart. It began pounding quite fiercely. "Perhaps not a cabin, depending on the assignment, but there would certainly be some sort of adequate housing--Ray, are you thinking about...Are you considering not returning to Chicago?"

"Yeah." He started fidgeting again, and he looked away from me. "Well, maybe. Yeah. Maybe. I mean, I don't even know if I could or anything, I haven't checked it out with Immigration or anything--"

"I'm sure there would be no problem with extending your visa for however long you wanted to visit--"

"Yeah. Yeah, well, you see Fraser...see I was thinking maybe...Shit." He sat up again and relit the lamp. I could see him quite clearly now, wild hair, wilder eyes. He turned back and looked at me defiantly. "What if I'm not interested in extending a vacation? What if I'm thinking something more than a visit?"

"More than a visit." _I sound like a parrot,_ I thought. _Or an idiot_. Yet I couldn't quite make myself ask the question. What if I was wrong? What if he wasn't thinking--

"Yeah, what if I was thinking longer than that, Fraser, what if I'm thinking something a little bit more permanent?"

"Permanent? Ray, I--" I took a deep breath. "Permanent?" I repeated.

"Yeah, permanent. Y'know, happily ever after and all. Like forever or something." And then Ray reached out for me, and then he smiled.


End file.
